Thursday, December 28, 2006

Our beloved paisana Elia Aboumrad Harfuch didn't fare so well during the catering challenge on the last episode of Top Chef. She was (unfairly, it seemed to us) blamed for not providing enough food for the party guests. The implication was that catering was simply not her thing.

However, we have found evidence that our Elia can handle the most stressful catering job of all, a family wedding. In the Mexican magazine Casas y Gente (Homes and People, and, as the title suggests, just as stultifyingly preening as any socialite rag north of the border), we located a one-paragraph story on the October 2005 wedding of our Elia's cousin, Elia Harfuch (and since our Elia's mother is also named Elia Harfuch, things must get a little confusing during Christmas-card season). At left is a picture of the bride and groom, followed by our rough and dirty translation of the itty-bitty article.

The wedding ceremony of Elia Harfuch and Alejandro Pinzón was an emotional one. A dreamlike backdrop, the San Nicolas Ranch, practically at the foot of the Eagle's Peak [Mountain] in the Ajusco [Mountains outside Mexico City] was the ideal setting for the festivities. Her cousin, Elia Aboumrad Harfuch, chef of the L'Atelier restaurant in Las Vegas, was responsible for preparing the delicious menu featuring Middle Eastern dishes.

See? Our Elia can cater. We were amused, though, at the typical socialite-magazine puffery that elevated her from sous-chef to the chef at L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon (and notice how the Joël Robuchon part was left out). Tune in tomorrow for pictures of Elia herself working the hair and make-up. We know you'll come back for that, won't you, Google perv?

That's because she did not offer you guys ONE sample only per person per half hour throughout your entire reception.

It is a good thing to learn that each person at a 2-hour reception is probaby going to want to nibble more than 1 bite per half hour. And be allowed to enjoy more than 1 of an item if they like it a lot (without that meaning that someone else has to go without trying it).

The level of defensiveness continues with this blog apparently. No one ever doubted that Elia is talented and capable. To need to "prove" to the world that she successfully catered something is rather embarrassing.